Design Thinking: The Next Competitive Advantage

Roger Martin’sDesign Thinking: The Next Competitive Advantage talk at Yahoo! this week outlined design thinking, why it is important, and how we can overcome conflicts that arise between design & business. My notes follow:

How does our understanding of the World develop over time? Everything starts out as a mystery. As we analyze it, we turn it into a heuristic: a way of characterizing our thinking about something. When we understand it further, we turn it into an algorithm. In the late 20th century we added a fourth step: we began to code our algorithms.

This process can be thought of as a knowledge funnel. As we move down the knowledge funnel, we leave things out. When something is a mystery, we consider everything. When it is an algorithm, we need to consider less things to understand it. Finally, when a computer runs code it thinks about nothing. It just executes.

As we move down funnel, we create more efficiency. But the drawback is we leave things out.

Example: Type-setting. Started with mystery of how to publish, became an algorithm, now it’s code. Requires no thought for most people. Designers add things back into the knowledge funnel. In type-setting, designers add kerning.

Analytical thinking is refinement within an existing knowledge stage of the funnel. For example, refining an algorithm or a heuristic. Analytical thinking is:

Substantiation based on past events

Look at past, use it to tell you what to do

Deductive: have a rule, apply that rule

Inductive: take a lot of examples and deduce

Use a limited number of objective variables

Minimize judgment to reduce the possibility of bias

Organized by: ongoing tasks managed over long time

Mode of Reasoning: declarative –declare whether true or false

Source of Status: managing big budget & large staff

Dominant attitude: constraints are the enemy

Goal is reliability: to produce consistent replicable outcomes

Design Thinking is the advancement from one knowledge stage to the next knowledge stage. For example, from mystery to heuristic. Design thinking is:

Substantiation based on future events. Can only be proven in the future.

Logic of what might be: abductive. Inductive & Deductive does not determine new things.

The use of a broad number of diverse variables. Not all can be easily quantified.

Integration of judgment.

Acknowledgement of the reality of bias

Organized by: projects

Mode of Reasoning: generative – logic of what might be

Source of Status: solving wicked problems

Dominant attitude: ), constraints add to challenge & excitement

Goal is validity: the production of outcome that meets objectives

These two approaches create conflict. Business people think about reliability. Designers are more interested in validity.

One is not better than the other. Both need each other but have fundamental differences. Prove it vs. If you tell me to prove it, I can’t do anything.

Advice on how to work together. Designers working with business:

Take design-unfriendliness as a design challenge: this needs to be part of your job.

Empathize with the “design-unfriendly” elements. Find out what they are trying to produce.